Why monitoring human rights in Sudan still matters

Does the human rights situation in Sudan still require a UN-mandated Independent Expert to monitor and report back on developments?

That is among the issues to be discussed as the 24th session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) opens today in Geneva.

Given Sudan’s dire human rights situation – ongoing armed conflicts in three different states, restrictions on freedoms of expression, association and assembly, including arbitrary arrest and torture of human rights defenders and activists – it is hard to imagine that there is even a question on whether this is needed.

But we’ve been here before.

Two years ago, I attended the HRC’s 18th session where members of the Council reached a “compromise” on human rights monitoring in Sudan. It was a “compromise” because, while the Independent Expert’s mandate was renewed, it solely focused on providing technical assistance and capacity-building support to the national authorities.

In other words, the Independent Expert would no longer be asked to monitor the human rights situation in Sudan.

That HRC decision came the same year that South Sudan gained independence – one of the outstanding issues that was part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Some commentators suggested that the international community was looking for ways to “reward” Sudan for adhering to the Agreement.

It was also the year that the UN Mission in Sudan, the main international organization with a human rights monitoring component, which had not been banned from working in Sudan, had its mandate terminated.

And the year that conflict broke out in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states, and the Sudanese governments’ armed forces carried out indiscriminate aerial bombardments and blocked humanitarian access to the two states.

Compromising on the Independent Expert’s mandate was seen as a concession to Sudan by the international community. A concession given to a country where widespread and systematic violations and abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law are taking place.

(2013-09-10/amnesty)